


Stories of the Second Self: Futility

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [124]
Category: Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22673917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Prying the knowledge of magical glyphs from the captive Walter Kovich what, Papa Delane Henry allows the Fae elder his freedom. However, Papa Henry hasn't truly unleashed Walter, and uses him to track back to the more powerful practitioner who eluded Papa Henry back in Columbus, Ohio.
Series: Alter Idem [124]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Futility

"It's done, Papa Henry," the buff angel said to Delane Henry.

Delane sat on his throne in the end of a large room decorated with noir furniture, Tolkienesque paintings, a ceiling made to look like a cloudless night sky, and fake windows complete with curtains over computer monitors along one wall. He had been alone on his black iron throne contemplating his next move, when one of his two primary angelic street enforcers had informed him.

With an over-dramatic hand gesture akin to casting a spell, Delane triggered his repurposed Wii controller sensors to switch the monitors from his Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit screensavers over to displaying security cam feeds. One of which showed Delane's solid black eyes a view of Walter Kovich, the nine-point antlered Fae that Delane held onto for a year after having him picked up.

Walter had to have heard the door locks, because Delane deliberately chosen models that were noisy. Yet, Walter just sat there at the end of the bed wondering who he would see come into his room. No one did, as Delane and the angel gunman watched. Minutes passed before Walter dared approach the door and test the knob. Opening the door a crack, Walter then hesitated stepped back again.

"What do you think he's thinking?" Delane asked the angel enforcer.

"He probably thinks we're playin' a head game with him, Papa Henry," the angel answered.

Delane honestly wouldn't have guessed that himself, because he always struggled with assessing how others felt. For all vampires, hormone production was virtually nonexistent, but those who spontaneously turned, at or before Alter Idem, seemed to have a deficit of empathy before crossing over from living to undead.

Fascinated by Walter's unwillingness to leave, Delane continued being captivated by the security cam video. For minutes, nothing much happened beyond Walter staring at the ajar door.

At last, Walter appeared willing to make an attempt at freedom. He slowly opened the door wider, stopping frequently to peek or, Delane guessed, listen. From his other views, Delane knew Walter would encounter no one in the hall or any hall in that floor or others, and Walter could have a clean shot at a number of fire escapes, or even the receiving bay if he were so audacious.

Yet, Walter wasn't a bold sort. He crept every inch, and often looked around to be sure no one would just blunder into view. Delane's Fae teacher of glyph magic went for the very first fire exit he discovered, but Walter worked the metal door at a glacial pace. Gently, Walter let the fire exit close, and once door edge met frame Walter hustled down the fire escape stairs, his cloven hooves clopping along the way.

"He's out of view, Papa Henry," the angel enforcer said, "We good to follow him now?"

"I will handle this one," Delane said, standing in his tailored tan suit. "Have Randal swing my car around front and the trunk open."

"Yes Papa Henry," the angel said and left.

Delane first went back to his spacious bedroom to scoop up a briefcase and a cooler, the latter having plastic sheeting sticking out in ruffles from under the lid. He then went to the elevator and rode it up to the ground floor.

Planning this for dusk, Delane headed for the foyer without concern of direct sunlight. There awaited his Lexus with the trunk hatch open. Delane placed the cooler in and closed it, and then he went for the driver side to get in. He set his briefcase onto the floor of the passenger side and started up the car.

Unable to relate to people's feelings personally, Delane left it to Ellsa Laqouis to assess when Walter was ripe for leading them straight back to the abandoned northern districts of Cincinnati. Several of Delane's people had attempted to find this retreat that Walter had formally called home before Delane made him a guest at the hotel. Yet, some power kept the place out of view, even from Fae under Delane's employ.

In the first few times Delane drove past Walter, he gauged that the junior tiered Fae elder was bee-lining it. Delane cruised around surrounding blocks of Walter's progress for the entire duration of Walter's pedestrian trek. It took hours and more than one visit to a gas station, as Walter at last reached the area inundated with vegetation that Delane knew was greened up using glyphs of power.

The densest walls of growth appeared to respond to Walter's approach, letting Delane know that to follow the Fae now meant leaving behind his car. Whereas leaves and branches reached out to caress Walter as he past, they recoiled from Delane's proximity. Maybe the glyphs here weren't Walter's work, because Delane's read of local spirits indicated that they remembered the vampire Bokor's deed against the founder of the Gaia Cult back in Columbus, Ohio.

After another half hour, Delane saw the green encrusted tower of stone. Risen as if grown rather than carved and chiselled, the single-piece structure reminded Delane of what he'd read about the subterranean stone tunnels that the Gaia Cult managed to create leading out of Columbus.

Walter had already gone inside, but Delane saw where approximately the entrance was. In contrast to prior plant growth, the ivy vines and other floral guardians attempted to obscure the doorway, and obstruct Delane's passage through it. The vampire pried the growth open, leaving a gaping wound.

Inside the doorway, Delane cast upon himself an illusion spell. Fae had an innate knowledge of illusion spells, but Delane poured himself into learning to use them. Whoever else lived in this new age nature commune, Delane needed only to worry about Fae spotting him.

Expecting Walter to go down into the tunnels, Delane instead heard Walter's hoof clops ascending. Taking off his shoes, Delane followed at least a floor behind Walter.

When Walter got to the roof he called out, "Yasmin?"

"Walter," exclaimed a young-sounding woman's voice, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I couldn't get word to you," Delane heard Walter reply, and then heard the Fae's warning. "There's this vampire voodoo guy, Delane Henry who seems real interested in your powers."

"I know," the rather sagely sounding youthful Yasmin said, "Every day, I felt his broaching, and now is my time."

"What do you mean?" Walter's voice decried, "Is it true what I heard about Laura, that she's in prison?"

"Most of my guests are now," Yasmin answered, "Or they're missing."

"What?" Walter's voice shrilly carried down the floor where Delane waited.

"Others just gave up and left," Yasmin went on, having not tried to assuage Walter's fretting.

"Look, we have to get out of here," Walter warned.

"It's too late," Yasmin replied, "I cannot get out now."

"You're saying Delane Henry's goons are here?" Walter clopped around to the edge of the building, possibly to site for trouble.

"He has but one agent in our midst," Yasmin serenely explained, "It's you."

"Wait-- no!" Walter made a easily heard steps.

Delane gave up subterfuge and boldly climbed up the last stretch of stairs. "It's true, Walter Kovich."

Walter gawped at Delane a moment, before he spun around on one hoof with his hands out and pleading, "No, Yasmin! Look- okay, yeah I taught him some of the glyphs and a few other things, but he held me hostage! He would've killed me and taken my soul."

"Walter," Yasmin began with an expression of utmost sympathy for the Fae who led her nemesis here, "He already has that."

"No," Walter protested with a hand to his own chest, "I'm still alive. He has to do some kind of ritual to take my soul, and it's lethal."

"That is one way," Delane admitted, as he strode closer to the nature magic pair. "However, it's much a brute force approach."

"Yasmin, I overheard that he took the soul of someone you knew," Walter spilled out Delane's secret. "This Fae elder woman named Ladonna. Her skull's in his hotel, where he uses it to channel power and knowledge from her spirit. He's going to do the same to you!"

"My soul is beyond his grasp," Yasmin proclaimed to Walter in a soothing whisper, as she placed her hands on Walter's cheeks.

Yasmin then stepped over to the ledge and turned around to again face Walter. Behind Walter, stood an ever closer Delane, captivated by the gripping drama between Walter and Yasmin. The uncertain Fae turned halfway, to look back and forth between Yasmin and Delane; two powerhouses of magic, one a living human filled with sublime youth, and the other, the unbeating heart of death and walking underworld.

Making a single forward step, Delane eyed Yasmin with a hunger he'd not let show on his face for a few years. Walter bolted, not at Delane, who could easily have crushed the Fae man much on the scrawny side, but right at Yasmin. Walter shoved hard into her shoulders, and almost fell off the roof with her.

That is, until a steely and cool grip latched on his upper arm. "Whoa there, Walter. Wouldn't want to tumble off unless you're sure of it."

Delane flung Walter away from the roof edge, but the Fae put up a defiant expression, still on his rump and scurrying backwards.

"Now you'll never have her spirit," Walter mocked, "She's free from you forever."

"As she was before," Delane revealed, and then crouched down with an index finger raised briefly. "You see, Walter, years ago I sensed that she had bound her spirit to the Earth. I can't say if she did it then to evade captivity in my collection of souls, or if it was rooted there all along. How we live much decides where our souls go, surely as much as the declarations we make to traditions or quietly to ourselves."

"What does that mean?" Walter- if Delane guessed right, seemed stricken.

"Nothing I could have done would award me her soul," Delane answered an increasingly distraught Walter, to whom he dropped the last bomb. "You killed her for nothing--. And that's precisely what I needed from you for your soul. When you first laid eyes on me you proved all too eager to capitulate, dreading what I might do should you not cooperate. That began the course of binding your soul to me. Your lack of commitment to your beloved girlfriend or Yasmin, whom you would've eventually betrayed Laura for, if Yasmin were so inclined, furthered your journey into indenturement to me. Murdering Yasmin cut your soul off from all other avenues, even spiritual oblivion.

"That is why you are mine," Delane concluded.

"Wait a minute," Walter protested, again scrambling backwards on his hands, heels, and rear. "Don't kill me!"

"You will die," Delane assured with a nod. "Today. Tomorrow. Years from now. Maybe centuries, with as many antler points as you have. I can wait."

"But, you wanted her skull for that throne of yours," Walter stammered.

Looking off to the side, Delane pictured that very goal. "A consolation prize. Perhaps it'll grant me some residual power and an inkling of insight into the vast realm of arts Yasmin mastered."

With that, Delane stood and walked casually past the Fae man.

"Fuck you!" Walter suddenly spat, and then recoiled when Delane again glanced at him.

"It's been a fun game, Walter," Delane offered.

"No!" Walter seemed at last to muster up some courage, and jumped to his feet. "You don't touch her body!"

Delane noticed the position of Walter's hands, and recognized what spell Walter was threatening him with. "I have three counters for what you're about to use, that can be cast before your needed gestures are completed. And then I will feed from you. Afterward, you'll enter my service all the sooner. Is that what you want?"

Walter's hands lowered, and he looked away with a face Delane would have to inquire Ellsa about. Maybe it was shame, but it was a state of being with which Delane had no experience or familiarity. "Enjoy your remaining time while you can, Walter. We'll be working together soon enough."

With that, Delane went back down to seek out where Yasmin fell. Taking her heart would serve Delane no purpose, but the cooler was for her head, once cut off. He'd skin and drain the skull in his hotel ritual chamber. The briefcase contained ritual knifes and other artifacts of his craft.


End file.
